I've always loved traditional animation and also had it in mind that I'd love to take a stab at it. With no animation training but knowing the general basics of it, two years ago I animated a 'pencil test' of my character Crazy Banana Legs. My cousin Scott Greenwood added sound to it which was a lot of fun but I didn't go forth with any coloring or inking.
It had been on my mind to go back to animation and continue with the hopes of getting better with each one. SO, with that said, my brain was flooded with ideas for animation shorts and a lot of these that came to me were for my friends at 52 Weeks of Horror (www.52WeeksOfHorror.com). 52 Weeks of Horror is a relatively new company devoted to all things horror - By horror fans For horror fans. 52 Weeks of Horror is a fantastic source of education and entertainment for the ever sprawling genre that is horror. I've been lucky and blessed to have gotten to write articles for them and to have short stories featured on the site.
Of all the ideas for animated 52 Weeks shorts I chose Inner Pets. It was done using tracing paper, pencil, ink, and colored pencil (177 frames); followed by scanning them all and cutting the sequence to the speed that feels right. I penciled it all before contacting Scott to see if he'd want to do sound for this one as well. After I got a 'yes' from him, I went back and inked it all. Halfway through the coloring, my hand messed up. It was streaking with pain and actually ceased to work to the point where my wife and I were out having sushi and I couldn't even use chopsticks. The pain started to streak up my arm any time I went back to try to continue the coloring. LUCKILY my daughter Paige was coming home from college for Christmas break. I asked if she'd help and sheeeee did. She helped finish up the coloring and did a fantastic job. I scanned it all, found the edit I like and sent it to Scott to just have fun with it. It was a real family affair. I'm happy with it and it's a step froward from my animation pencil test. With my arm healed and coming up with a better way for me to work, along with a light box my wife got me for Christmas, I'm ready to get to work on the next step in my animation.
I hope you like Inner Pets and I hope you'll stick around for my further work in animation. Thank you.
UPDATE: This was the photo I originally traced for the short, me as a little boy.
